ABSTRACT
Late in the summer of 1760, a large Comanche raiding party besieged the fortified home of Pablo Villalpando in the village of Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. After a daylong fight, the Comanches breached the walls and killed most of the male defenders. Whether of Spanish or Indian origin, two factors are essential to people's understanding of the captive experience in greater New Mexico and perhaps to similar cases in other periods and regions. Captive women usually became clan members and married exogamously. Even if not inducted into clan membership, their children by Navajo men were considered members of the father's clan. Captives seem to have fared less well among the Jicarilla Apaches, a semisedentary people who practiced a seasonal economy that balanced hunting and collecting with extensive horticulture. Warfare among the Jicarillas often involved the seizure of captives, either for vengeance satisfaction or cultural integration.
